martial-elf ch82

“…Young master…wake up…Young Master Hee…”

A voice awakening the fog-like depths of my mind.

…Is it calling me?

The voice of a troubled young girl caused my submerged consciousness to rise.

“Young Master Hee! You must wake up! The sun is at its zenith! The master said he would be visiting with guests at the hour of Misi (1-3 PM) today!”

Still unable to shake off the last vestiges of sleep, I lifted my heavy eyelids with a hazy mind.

What I saw upon opening my eyes was a chestnut-sized girl with her hands on her hips, wearing a sullen expression.

The clothes looked a little worn, having been passed down through several generations, but the form and finish indicated that it was originally a high-quality piece made with skilled craftsmanship from fine cotton.

In a human world where properly made clothes were precious, it was not the kind of garment a seemingly unremarkable little girl would wear.

More than anything, it was a very foreign yet familiar style of clothing.

“Oh, come on! You need to get your senses back quickly. I let you sleep a little longer because you said you weren’t feeling well, but if you keep this up, the master will severely scold you! Here! Your medicinal brew!”

The girl grumbled, saying, “You can’t do without me!” and held out a bowl filled with herbal medicine.

Overwhelmed by her energy, I took the medicine and stared blankly into the bowl.

The surface of the clear, black jade-like medicine, well-brewed and strained of all residue, reflected a face.

A handsome boy with distinct and well-proportioned features.

But as they say, the eyes are the window to the soul.

The dark circles under his eyes and the unfocused gaze revealed an emotion of resignation that could not be concealed.

Clatter!

“Gyaaaaak! Young Master! Do you know how much trouble I went through to brew this!”

The voice of the girl beside me, who was in a state of shock and making a fuss, barely registered.

I simply stared blankly at the floor.

The spilled medicine, rolling across the wooden floor, reflected a boy with a pale face staring back at himself.

◈ ◈ ◈

“Really, I can’t live because of you, young master. I know you’re not feeling well, but all the more reason to focus and live properly. You know, in the neighborhood I used to live in, even a six-year-old kid… chatter chatter…”

I looked down at the crown of the head of the young maid, who was skillfully helping me change my clothes before my eyes, yet chattering away like a machine gun without a moment’s rest.

Gu Ye.

One of the maids who served me last in my previous life.

‘…No… is it not a previous life?’

I. Ara, or rather, Gongsun Hee, was utterly confused by the current situation.

And for good reason, as it was the body of Gongsun Hee, a martial artist whom the family had kept hidden and secretly managed in my previous life.

“Young master…! Just a moment! Not yet!”

Anxiously, I took a step towards the outside to assess the situation.

But the divine skill that could easily traverse a distance of twenty spans in a single stride was nothing more than the floundering of a sick man, as if it were all just a dream.

Amidst all this, the discrepancy in the height of my changed perspective caused one of my steps to falter in the air.

“Ugh-!”

As my body’s center of gravity wavered, I tried to maintain my balance by planting my other foot, but my slow and weak foot could not support the collapsing center and faltered along with it, causing me to fall and tumble.

It was just a twisted leg and a tumble on the floor, and even though it was a wooden floor, a jolt reverberated through my entire body as if I had been struck by a massive battering ram against a castle gate.

“…Heok!”

Tears welled up in my eyes from the unbearable pain.

And I remembered.

The heavenly punishment I had forgotten during a dreamlike time.

The curse bestowed by the heavens. The unidentified severed meridians.

Born into one of the prestigious martial arts clans, yet with a body weaker than that of an ordinary commoner.

A short lifespan that could not be guaranteed to exceed twenty years of age, even with expensive restorative medicines.

“Kyaa! Hee… Young Master Hee, are you alright?”

Hearing Ye’s voice as she rushed towards me with a scream, I felt a small sense of despair sprouting in a corner of my heart.

◈ ◈ ◈

“…Young master, are you alright…?”

Ye puts down the medicine bowl with a worried expression.

The face reflected in the medicine bowl was more haggard than before, and the aura of death had begun to set in.

I slowly averted my gaze from the medicine bowl.

Before my eyes were stacks of books.

The covers were inscribed with names written in ink that had not yet dried.

Harmony Sword Method, Lightning Flash Sword Thunder Stance, Netherworld Monarch Dragon Slaughter Stance, Probing All Forms, Golden Roc Winged Steps, …Alaya Consciousness and Alaya Consciousness Breathing Technique.

The various other books were all martial arts manuals.

Martial arts that either did not exist in this world, or existed in a different form than what was written here.

‘The memories are so vivid.’

I gently stroked the martial arts manuals, thinking.

Some of the underlying ideologies were incompatible with humans, but no flaws could be found in the ideological logic that constituted the ideologies.

Most of the martial arts could be embodied here as well.

That was why my feelings were complicated.

Was everything truly a dream?

The only thing to boast about in this weak and broken body of circulation was the abnormally developed Baihui acupoint.

The Upper Dantian that communicates with heaven and earth and is responsible for spirituality.

Did my Upper Dantian show me a dream as a way to express my resentment for fading away without leaving any particular name or meaning in the world?

The martial arts I created myself in the dream seemed real and the memories were clear, but everything else was fading away like after a dream as time passed.

Now, I can’t even remember properly, and only a lingering feeling remains in my heart.

“Ugh-! Blegh-!”

“Young master!”

More than anything, what makes me realize reality to a despairing degree is this cursed heavenly punishment.

The cursed severed meridians that grow in presence day by day, devouring my body.

I stopped Ye, who was approaching with concern, and wiped my mouth with my black sleeve.

Not the green robes like those worn by Guan Yu that I wore in my dream, but black silk clothes.

Yes, the reason I started wearing black clothes was because of this.

Bloodstains were difficult to remove cleanly even after washing.

The cursed body. The black clothes like those of a grim reaper. Being born as the descendant of a prestigious martial arts family and having to end my short life confined in a prison like this. And those who sneered at or pitied me.

Everything came with a dense sense of reality.

“Haha…”

Even I could feel that it was a pathetic laugh.

◈ ◈ ◈

Am I a butterfly, or is the butterfly me?

Was that a saying from Zhuangzi?

But after returning to Zhuangzi’s form, the butterfly could not transform back into a butterfly.

It was truly a cruel thing.

Because it was the butterfly’s happy dream.

Knowing that it was an impossible dream.

All that remains is resignation.

The water droplets in the inkstone flow along the ink slab, and the ink is ground.

The family’s disappointment in my potential, and then their delight in my potential, was unprecedented.

A task that has been repeated countless times.

When the precious brush made of weasel hair is soaked with ink, letters are written in a single stroke on the blank paper.

Along with the writing, simple illustrations to aid understanding were also added.

The writing and drawings came to an end only when the brush stopped at the final chapter that had been planned.

About two hours.

A martial art that would form the foundation of a sect was modified.

At the request of the leader of the Heavenly Mountain Sect, a relatively large sect among the many small and medium-sized sects that had established themselves in the Heavenly Mountain range of Liaodong, who was visiting as a guest of the family.

Of course, it was a different sect from the Heavenly Mountain Sect located in Xinjiang, with only the name in common.

Countless sects have been founded in the Central Plains, and if you include even the gangs of thugs who have gathered and given themselves plausible names, the number exceeds ten thousand.

How many of those sects have a founder with the qualities of a great master?

The Nine Schools and One Sect, which have produced geniuses of an era, and the Eight Great Families, powerful martial arts clans, are beings above the heavens.

Most of them would be unknown beyond a single province, or people who would make a name for themselves in one generation and then disappear.

Talented disciples all flow into prestigious schools, and it is not uncommon for those who lack talent to have no proper successor to inherit the founder’s martial arts, or for disciples with insufficient ability to continue the lineage, deviating from the underlying ideology and principles of the martial arts due to misinterpretations, resulting in the use of degraded martial arts based on incorrect teachings.

In the Central Plains, where a long history has accumulated and countless countries have risen and fallen, even though the Zhu family has established a new country, learning is still precious in the secular world, and important knowledge and talents are still closed off and monopolized.

To those small and medium-sized sects, my existence is like a miracle.

If they promise appropriate compensation and cooperation with the Gongsun family, I will lead their martial arts to a higher level.

And not with entirely new martial arts, but by using the martial arts they originally used.

Martial artists have a great desire for martial arts, and if they have the opportunity to learn a divine skill, they may even give up the martial arts they have cultivated so far.

However, the decision to give up martial arts that one has learned for a lifetime is not easy, and breaking the master-disciple relationship based on the origins of the original martial arts is not something that can be easily done in this country where Confucianism is flourishing.

But what if they entrust the martial arts that have been the foundation of their sect for a long time to me?

Martial arts can develop as they are passed down, but they can also be degraded by misinterpretations.

Even the same words can be interpreted differently depending on the person who receives them.

Therefore, I restore distorted interpretations to their original interpretations, and in some cases, even develop the martial arts further than their original form.

Moreover, I am a person who ‘does not exist’ in the Gongsun family ‘officially’.

The martial arts improved through me become the achievements of the client himself when I die and disappear over time.

If the truth is hidden, all that remains is the honor of being a descendant who restored the founder’s martial arts and even advanced them a step further.

Thanks to this, the number of small and medium-sized sects that come under the Gongsun family increases, and even the quality becomes more elite, and the Gongsun family’s power has grown even greater than that of the Murong family, the long-time overlords of Liaodong.

The Eight Great Families are what the world calls them, so simply increasing power immediately will not change the position of the Eight Great Families, but if time passes, it may not be long before the Gongsun family takes that place.

Of course, by that time, this body will be dead and gone.

I simply created and modified martial arts, destined to be used by the family until I die.

Although not a direct descendant, I was treated quite preciously, as a ‘useful object’.

The children who served me would be ‘disposed of’ when I died someday, but they were well-trained, and the medicines and meals to maintain my body’s health were of good quality.

I no longer desired the fleeting attention and love of blood relatives that I once craved.

But even if I was a being who would be erased from history without leaving a single line, I wanted to leave my mark on the world.

Even if the merit I created becomes the merit of another, I hope that the martial arts I created and modified will be engraved in the world in a different way.

‘…It would have been nice if I could have learned martial arts myself.’

A happy dream that I can’t even remember now.

It was a feeling of freely roaming the world, even though my body was smaller and weaker than my current one.

After a bitter laugh, I put away the completed martial arts and picked up a book.

A Record of Watching Gongsun Da Niang’s Disciple Perform a Sword Dance.

Like a traveler whose thirst is never quenched no matter how much they drink.

Longing for stories that I cannot achieve myself.

I began to turn the pages of a book containing the story of a superhuman with the same surname as myself.